Elisabeth Jacobs

Former Expert

Elisabeth Jacobs is the Senior Director for Policy and Academic Programs at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and a former fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where her research focused on economics, political science, and sociology in order to inform domestic social policy.

Previously, Jacobs worked on the Hill – first as the American Sociological Association’s congressional fellow with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and then as a senior policy advisor to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Her portfolio encompassed a wide range of economic and social policy matters, including the economic stimulus package and health care reform.

Prior to her time on the Hill, Jacobs was a research fellow at Brookings, where she researched and wrote on family economic security and public attitudes toward social welfare policy. She is the author, with Katherine Newman, of Who Cares: Public Ambivalence and Government Activism from the New Deal to the Second Gilded Age (Princeton University Press, 2010). Her work has been published or referenced in a wide range of outlets, including the New York Times, The New Republic, and numerous academic journals.

She has degrees from Harvard University (Ph.D, 2008, A.M. 2005) and Yale University (B.A., 1999). During her tenure at Harvard, Jacobs was a Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy. Her work has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Harvard University Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, the Harvard University Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and other sources.

Elisabeth Jacobs is the Senior Director for Policy and Academic Programs at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and a former fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where her research focused on economics, political science, and sociology in order to inform domestic social policy.

Previously, Jacobs worked on the Hill – first as the American Sociological Association’s congressional fellow with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and then as a senior policy advisor to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Her portfolio encompassed a wide range of economic and social policy matters, including the economic stimulus package and health care reform.

Prior to her time on the Hill, Jacobs was a research fellow at Brookings, where she researched and wrote on family economic security and public attitudes toward social welfare policy. She is the author, with Katherine Newman, of Who Cares: Public Ambivalence and Government Activism from the New Deal to the Second Gilded Age (Princeton University Press, 2010). Her work has been published or referenced in a wide range of outlets, including the New York Times, The New Republic, and numerous academic journals.

She has degrees from Harvard University (Ph.D, 2008, A.M. 2005) and Yale University (B.A., 1999). During her tenure at Harvard, Jacobs was a Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy. Her work has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Harvard University Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, the Harvard University Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and other sources.

It's pretty clear that at the last minute, a lot of women made a decision that Obama really understood what their economic concerns were. Yes, they want control over their own body...but decisions over health care can limit their ability to control economics as well.